European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 23, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday april 23, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13commentary George will Kelley has Kitty Kelley who battens like a Leech on the lives of famous people is a professional retailer of falsehoods. Her remunerative work in the sewers of journalism exploits the fact that Public figures can be recklessly written about with impunity. / / a to prevent a a chilling effects on Public discourse courts have m Ade it almost prohibitively difficult for Public figures to defend themselves from even reckless and malicious disregard for the truth. Many Public figures have had this experience an absurd injurious and easily Refutable Rumor is reported As fact and the publish or says a Well we accurately report  Nancy Reagan is today a victim. For the record i unlike Kelley know Nancy Reagan. Many people who Admire her As i do refused to cooperate with Kelley knowing her to be the journalistic Sociopath that her new Book shows her to be. So most of her a sources a if they exist Are hostile to her subject. Y.7 a if one must have enemies May their malice crudeness mendacity and ignorance be As Patent As Kelley a. No one whose opinion matters to a grown up can read a Page of Kelley a Book without disgust with her technique. Here is a Sample concerning Nancy in the 1940s a one Man Nancy saw on a regular basis was or. Daniel Ruge her fathers senior assistant at passavant Hospital who would one Day become Ronald Reagan a White House physician. A he would Call me and ask me to cover for him a said. A resident at passavant at the time. Dan would say a i m going to take Nancy Over to the Esquire theater and head sneak out for a couple of hours while i covered the House. What he did with her at that theater i done to know. He was too much of a gentleman Ever to Tell me but that was a thing that was hot and heavy in 1945 for at least three months that 1 knew about. A years later. Or. Ruge denied any romantic involvement with Nancy Davis saying a i think someone is getting me confused with Clark  a a few Days before Nancy left for new York she ran into two male friends of her parents and shocked the two married men by her method of saying goodbye. A a a Ben arid i were walking Down East Lake Shore drive by the Drake hotel a said one of the men a we had just finished lunch when we saw Nancy who came running Oyer to us. She said she was leaving town and just wanted to say Theo Lippman or. Kitty a amp i Eye a inst interview goodbye she grabbed me first kissed me hard on the lips and plunged her Tongue Down my Throat. Then she thrust herself at Ben and did the same thing to  this tale involves four men. Only one or. Ruge is identified. He scoffs at inane innuendoes like the one what did they do at the theater of the a president at passavant a Why is the resident not identified Why Are a a Bend and his talkative Friend not identified could it be that Kelley does not want her a a facts checked with her a a sources How Many decades after the fact a four a did bends talkative Friend talk and to whom concerning his vivid memories about his Throat and Nancy a Tongue this episode like much of the Book reeks of fabrication. Barbara Bush pouncing on a Kelley falsehood concerning a gift to Nancy Reagan denounces the Book As a trash and fiction and endorses the description of it As  even Kelley a acknowledgements Are absurd. In a list of a editors writers and reporters who a took the time to answer questions and share their stories a whatever that Means a there appears the name of the Man who runs the mail room in time magazines Washington Bureau. The list of people who she says helped her is Long. Y. Y by. A by  a Quot. Y there is a political element to some of the attention this Book has received. Kcal / Ley who has a Cash Register behind her forehead is not complicated Chough to have political motives the same cannot be said of the new York times which last sunday presented a front Page Story passively recounting Many of the books allegations. People who sell garbage present no mystery the morals of the marketplace have Many devotees. But what causes so Many buyers to take such Delight in seeing famous Peoples names besmirched perhaps it has something to do with the prevalence of envy in a democratic society the result of the egalitarian impulse gone rancid. Envy is the Only one of the seven deadly sins that gives the sinner not even momentary pleasure. Pleasure comes later from seeing prominent people brought As Low As envious people perpetually feel. That pleasure will be denied to readers of Kelley a Book which is too unrelieved by tendentious to do lasting injury but brisk sales of the Book testily at least in part to an avid suspension of disbelief by some people whose lives evidently arc so arid they can Only be irrigated by lurid gossip. Today a teen agers a at least those who inhabit and filler through my House a a have an Apt response to people who take seriously frivolous things. They say a get a life a that is Good advice for people Cager to get this Book. C the Washington Post i asked my favorite bookseller to save me a copy of a Nancy Reagan the unauthorized biography a by Kitty Kelley. A wok a she said a but you wont like it. Its  Boring id heard a lot of criticism of the Book but not that it was Boring. Just the opposite. It was too sensational. The first thing i noticed about the Book was that its cheap. Simon amp schuster ought to be ashamed to have manufactured a Book so inexpensively made. The inside front of my copy came unglued from the spine the Day after i got it. If it were a car it would be recalled. But you done to want to hear about that. You want to hear about the gossip. I know my readers. You re All like Alice Roosevelt Longworth. To s daughter kept a Pillow in her sitting room embroidered with a if you can to say anything Good about someone sit right Here by  i believe in gossipy anecdotes. I believe you can understand a persons life and times by accumulating lots of dirty Little titbits. If Nancy Reagan was having an affair with Frank Sinatra in the White House that is significant information and not Only about them. Reading that insinuation in a Nancy a i could for the first time believe that maybe the president did no to know Ollie North was Swap Ping arms for hostages. If he did no to know what was going on in the bedroom Why would you think he knew what was going on in the basement. But were Frank and Nancy having an affair Kitty Kelley a sources Are described Only As two or maybe one she fudges it Anonymous White House aides. The author does no to say flatly that there was adultery. Though she has in interview but she quotes her sources this Way a she usually would arrange those a lunches when the president was out of  note the Interior quotation Marks. This is the Wink arid sneer school of writing. The Book is full of it. No anecdote is Ever allowed to seem innocent or positive. A a a critical biography is important but a biographer has an obligation to present the life whole. This Book is an unrelenting attack. Kelley comes on like a prosecuting attorney trying to put a serial killer behind bars. Even if every Story in this Book were believable the portrait Isnit because so much has been left out and so much that a in is distorted. Every Story in the Book Isnit believable. The biographer can to be trusted. She faked her research. She lists dozens of journalists who she says a took the time to answer questions and share their  Peter Osterlund of the Baltimore Sun is one. Lie says he is a a befuddled by this. He says he spoke to her briefly once or twice in social settings several years ago but never As a source of Nancy stories. Other listed journalistic sources deny having a shared  one says his total conversation with Kelley was a How do you do a another says he never spoke to her at All. The Book is flawed in every Way. And yes worst of All for a Book of gossip it is Dull. Even Alice Roosevelt Longworth would have hated it. C the Baltimore sort the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government